An important opportunity in graduate school is to get peer and mentor feedback on results. One of the best ways to do that is to share what you have been working on with your colleagues at a symposium.

The story of how I joined Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology (INBT) is actually one of those moments where it just hits you – Why haven’t I thought about doing this before? It started with me being back at home during the winter of my sophomore year, meeting friends of my parents and answering the most common question: Where do you study? One of the reactions that stuck with me the whole night was “Wow, how does it feel to be in the center of the most cutting-edge research?” This made me realize how I’d been oblivious to one of the things I would love to get involved in.

Better one and a half years late than never, I decided to join the research bandwagon as well. I started going through the profiles of labs on Homewood campus, looking for a topic that would make me want to be there in lab every free minute during the year. I finally found one that sparked my curiosity: the Denis Wirtz Lab. Dr. Wirtz is the Smoot Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and also the University’s Vice Provost for Research.

Working in the lab!

Though at the time most of the stuff I read about the Wirtz lab went over my head, I knew that cancer was something I had always wanted the world to be rid of. Seeing near and dear ones succumb to it was one of the most excruciating things which I wanted no one to experience in the future. Fascinated by the approach taken by Dr. Wirtz, I shot him off an email and to my amazement, I got an email back within the hour, “Sent to my grad students, look forward to working with you. d”. The next day I was scheduled to be back in Baltimore, and the day after that, I was a part of Wirtz lab.

During my training, I remember asking one of my peers “How in the world can I remember all these procedures, let alone do them?” She simply smiled and said, “You’ll see”. In a few weeks, I found myself doing those very procedures, one step after another as if it were a reflex action. I would most definitely attribute me being able to do this to my grad student Hasini Jayatilaka (don’t kill me for calling you out!). At the end of the day, what I felt it boiled down to, was realizing that the person I work for was in the same shoes five-seven years ago as I was now, and she wouldn’t expect anything unrealistic out of me. Once you embrace the challenge ahead, knowing that there is no need to be intimidated, you’re good to go.

The best part of being involved in research, apart from the work you do, is sitting in class in a lecture hall and suddenly tune in to the professor talking about something that you do in lab each day. That moment cements your understanding of why you did what you’ve been doing for so many days, it connects the dots in your mind, and that moment is when you’ve completed the full circle between theory and practice.

Our team at a poster presentation over the summer.

For me personally, having to come to lab got me into a disciplined schedule. I had a fixed time for all days of the week now to wake up (which for me used to be the latest possible time before), since if I had no morning classes, I was in lab. It helped me a lot with my time management skills, with me cutting down on TV shows and sporadic naps. To my surprise, it did not affect the amount of time I spent with my friends, as the reduction in TV shows and naps was (extremely) disturbingly enough to keep every other aspect of my daily schedule the same. Being surrounded in lab by people in similar academic disciplines also gets me a ton of advice on classes. It’s like my own little “rate-my-professor” that encourages me to definitely take some class if it is “the best class I will take at Hopkins”. At times, it’s also a ‘learning den’ where I can get help with classes if I need to. Getting involved in a research lab also came with social outings with the team, with our dinners enabling us to get to know each other on a more personal level. I feel that this in a big way contributed to the chemistry we have while working with each other, made us comfortable spending time with each other at work.

At this point, after nine exciting months, including a fully lab-packed summer, I feel that this continues to be one of the best decisions I made so far. I do not regret being here every day, but take pride in saying “I need to be in lab”. One of the most cherished take-away for me is developing a sense of accountability for my actions, which I feel is an important aspect in life. I would definitely encourage being involved in research while at Hopkins as you have nothing to lose but so much to gain.

Pranay Tyle, is a junior in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering minoring in Economics, and hopes to one day manufacture low cost medicine accessible to those in dire need across the globe.

For all press inquiries regarding INBT, its faculty and programs, contact Mary Spiro, mspiro@jhu.edu or 410-516-4802.

Researchers from Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology are visualizing many of the steps involved in how cancer cells break free from tumors and travel through the blood stream, potentially on their way to distant organs. Using an artificial blood vessel developed in the laboratory of Peter Searson, INBT director and professor of materials science and engineering, scientists are looking more closely into the complex journey of the cancer cell.

Wong describes the transparent device, which is made up of a cylindrical channel lined with human endothelial cells and housed within a gel made of collagen, the body’s structural protein that supports living tissues. A small clump of metastatic breast cancer cells is seeded in the gel near the vessel while a nutrient rich fluid was pumped through the channel to simulate blood flow. By adding fluorescent tags the breast cancer cells, the researchers were able to track the cells’ paths over multiple days under a microscope.

VIDEO: Watch how a cancer cell approaches the artificial blood vessel, balls up and then forces its way through the endothelial cells and into the streaming fluids within the channel of the device. (Video by Searson Lab)

The lab-made device allows researchers to visualize how “a single cancer cell degrades the matrix and creates a tunnel that allows it to travel to the vessel wall,” says Wong. “The cell then balls up, and after a few days, exerts a force that disrupts the endothelial cells. It is then swept away by the flow. “

Wong said his next goal will be to use the artificial blood vessel to investigate different cancer treatment strategies, such as chemotherapeutic drugs, to find ways to improve the targeting of drug-resistant tumors.

Results of their experiments with this device were published in the journal Cancer Research in September.

In 2013, a partnership with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) and the Whiting School of Engineering launched APL/WSE Summer Program in Undergraduate Research or SPUR program. Whiting School of Engineering undergraduates who were selected for this prestigious program spent an incredible summer at APL working with mentors and conducting research as paid SPUR Scholars.

The application process for SPUR Scholars for the summer of 2015 is now open!

The program seeks highly qualified and motivated WSE undergraduates to be 2015 SPUR Scholars. To learn more, you are invited to attend the 2014 SPUR Poster and Information Session from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, October 21 in the Glass Pavilion on the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. Refreshments will be provided. Please register for the event today at this link.

At the event, last summer’s SPUR Scholars will present a poster session about their research findings and representatives from APL and WSE will be there to answer students’ questions about the application and selection process. For more information on the SPUR program visit this link.

For all press inquiries regarding INBT, its faculty and programs, contact Mary Spiro, mspiro@jhu.edu or 410-516-4802.

Are you planning to apply for the Johns Hopkins Provost Undergraduate Research Award (PURA)? Have your application reviewed by experts — people who have previously won! Bring your applications to Shaffer 300 at 7p.m. on Oct. 1 and prepare for some constructive criticism. Improve your chances of winning funding for your great research idea! This meeting is open to any student applying for the PURA grant. This event hosted and sponsored by Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology.

The PURA program offers Johns Hopkins University students unique opportunities to conduct undergraduate research. Founded in 1993 on the belief that encouraging undergraduates to engage in research activity enhances the learning experience and helps to develop investigative skills, the PURA program is an important part of the university’s mission. PURA has given out an average of 46 awards per year (2 cycles/ year) since its inception in 1993. Guided by a full-time faculty sponsor, PURA research is designed by the student and can take many forms. From policy to nanotechnology; DNA engineering to musical presentation; short film to depression; the PURA program has enabled undergraduates to study all manner of subjects and have their results published in professional journals.

Recently, my attention was drawn to an article the same way I find many articles: through Facebook. Several of my many science-minded friends referenced a recent article from sciencemag.org entitled “Who’s Afraid of Peer Review?”, where a spoof paper with clearly bad controls was submitted to 304 open access journals and was accepted by 157. After reading a variety of comments with tones ranging from outrage to, “damn, I need to start writing some fake papers,” there was no way I wasn’t going to check out the article.

Image used with permission from http://strange-matter.net/screen_res/nz060.jpg

Basically, some writers from Science generated a fake paper the claimed a chemical extracted from a lichen had shown anticancer properties. While the article claimed that there was a strong dose-dependent effect of the drug on the cancer cells, the effect barely varied over 5 orders of magnitude. The paper claimed that the chemical was dissolved in large amounts of ethanol before being added to cells, but the control cells were given no ethanol, meaning that likely what was killing the cells was not in fact the chemical, but the ethanol itself. Testing controls with the same solvent as the other conditions is standard, especially when large amounts of the solvent itself can have toxic effects. The spoof paper also went on to make large claims about how the molecule tested has potential as an anticancer drug.

It would seem likely, given the inherent flaws in the article, that the academics reviewing this paper would immediately raise a red flag about its content. However, the majority of the journals accepted the paper, including 45% of the journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), which is meant to identify the credible open access journals. Many of the journals that offered the authors any feedback ignored the glaring scientific mistakes and simply made suggestions for changes in formatting.

As a grad student, I read peer-reviewed papers nearly every day. And while I’ve always known that I should be critical of everything I read, I was still shocked that this spoof article with such glaringly bad science was accepted by so many publishers. While I’m not as tempted to submit my own fake articles as some of my Facebook friends, this sting operation performed by the writers at Science is making me much more skeptical of papers I find on the web.

Amanda Levy is a doctoral student in the materials science and engineering laboratory of Peter Searson, director of INBT.

For all press inquiries regarding INBT, its faculty and programs, contact Mary Spiro, mspiro@jhu.edu or 410-516-4802.

The most recent newsletter from Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center (PS-OC) is now online for your reading pleasure. One of the best features of this little update is the extensive list of recently published papers with brief summaries of each. It is a full rundown of what this center has been working on since April 2014.

The Johns Hopkins Physical Sciences-Oncology Center is one of several NCI-funded PS-OC’s launched to better understand and control cancer through initiatives that enable the convergence of the physical sciences with cancer biology.

Jordan Green, Johns Hopkins University associate professor of biomedical engineering and executive committee member for the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, was named one of Popular Science magazine’s Brilliant Ten. The magazine recognized “inspired young scientists and engineers … whose ideas will transform the future.”

Jordan Green (Photo by Marty Katz)

Green’s work focuses on using nanoscale particles made in the shape of footballs that can train the body’s own immune system to tackle cancer cells. Turns out, particles with the elongated ovoid shape have a slightly larger surface area, which gives them an edge over spherical particles. The football-shaped particles did a better job of triggering the immune system to attack the cancer cells.

Green collaborated with Jonathan Schneck, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology, medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Both are affiliated faculty members of Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Their work was published in the journal Biomaterials on Oct 5, 2013.

In 1993, the Whiting School of Engineering at Johns Hopkins University started a tradition to honor faculty members who had been newly promoted to full professors through a special lecture series named for the school’s fifth dean. The Don P. Giddens Inaugural Professorial Lecture Series this fall features three faculty affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology. Each will take place in different auditoriums on the Homewood campus and begin at 3 p.m. They are free and open to the Hopkins community, but seating in each location is limited. Check it out.

Nine orders of magnitude separate humans from the nanometer length scale – much of what is hidden from the naked eye. Professor Gracias discusses how engineering three-dimensional devices at these tiny length scales promises revolutionary advances in optics, electronics and medicine.

Tuesday, Oct. 14, Gilman 50, 3-5 p.m.

Hai-Quan Mao, professor of materials science and engineering

Designer Materials for Tissue and Therapeutic Engineering

New materials with tailored structural and functional characteristics can advance the ways medical treatments are delivered to combat diseases and repair damaged tissue. Professor Mao chronicles several case studies about recent innovations in the development of polymeric nanomaterials to enhance stem cell expansion and differentiations and to improve gene medicine delivery.

Thursday, November 6, Hodson Hall 210, 3-5 p.m.

Tza-Huei “Jeff” Wang, professor of mechanical engineering

Discerning Rare Disease Biomarkers by Micro- and Nanotechnologies

Microfluidics, nanoparticles and single molecule spectroscopy hold great promise for advancing the molecular analysis of diseases. Professor Wang will explicate how these highly sensitive tools can enhance the detection of genetic and epigenetic markers for cancer, as well as assist in diagnosing infectious diseases more swiftly and accurately.

Posters are now being accepted for the Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering Symposium, co-organized by the Institute for Cell Engineering and Translational Tissue Engineering Center. The symposiumwill be held from 8:30 to 5 p.m. October 7, 2014 in the Mountcastle Auditorium, Pre-Clinical Teaching Building. Our keynote speakers are Dr. Irv Weismann from Stanford University and Dr. Arnold Caplan from Case Western Reserve University. Other speakers to be announced.

Students, postdoctoral fellows and faculties are encouraged to attend this one day symposium and present their work related to regenerative medicine during the lunchtime poster session. Please submit a short poster abstract to Eleni Georgantonis at egeorga1@jhmi.edu by September. 15. Awards for the best posters from students and postdocs will be presented at the end of the day.

The event is co-hosted by INBT affiliated faculty Jennifer Elisseeff and Guo-li Ming.

Blue and black, or white and gold? That is the question, apparently. Yes, we are still talking about The Dress, if you can believe it (even though we are secretly convinced that the white/gold camp is just having a laugh at our expense—it's clearly blue and black). To (ahem) shed some light on this great […]